THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 4, 1994 TAG: 9407040060
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
Democrats in the 1st Congressional District are having trouble finding a chairman for their party. Two years after the district elected North Carolina's first black U.S. representative since the turn of the century, influential Democrats are worried about the leadership position vacancy.
A little more than a week ago, the executive committee of the 1st District Democratic Party failed to select a successor to James Carlton Cole, who resigned as chairman to run for a District Court judgeship in the May primary.
Cole, a prominent black Perquimans County lawyer and community leader, will be sworn in as a District Court judge next Friday. He was appointed by Gov. James B. Hunt Jr., to serve out the term of his wife, former District Court Judge Janice McKenzie Cole. Janice Cole was named by President Clinton to be chief federal prosecutor for eastern North Carolina.
Cole still has to face a GOP candidate for the District Court bench in November, a task made no easier by the fact the district has not found a replacement for him as chairman.
Many other Democratic candidates face similar election challenges.
``Right now what we need is leadership - not color, but leadership,'' said Mayor E. V. Wilkins of Roper, N.C., one of the Albemarle's most politically savvy African-Americans. Wilkins is also chairman of the Elizabeth City State University Board of Trustees.
Party difficulties developed in Kinston, N.C., June 25 when the 1st District Democratic executive committee met to elect Cole's successor.
The meeting broke up in confusion over party rules and in the absence of several likely candidates for the chairmanship.
Wilkins and other black leaders had asked at least two white party veterans if they would consider nomination for the 1st District chairmanship.
``I don't want to get involved again,'' said William ``Bill'' Hodges, a white Greenville motel owner, who served as chairman of the party for nearly 20 years.
Thomas Paine, clerk of the Beaufort County court and Hodges' loyal adjutant in party affairs, also reportedly declined to volunteer for the chairmanship.
``There's a lot of concern about this and within a few days we'll have a meeting of regional committees to decide who will make an acceptable nominee for chairman,'' Wilkins said last week.
Acting party leader has been First Vice Chairperson Barbara Willoughby, a Greenville computer operator who said Friday she, too, plans to step down ``due to the serious illness of my father.''
Willoughby added, ``We intend to schedule another executive committee meeting July 30 in Lenior County Courthouse in Kinston. At that time, nominations will be open for a new 1st vice chair.''
Willoughby was elected 1st vice chairperson when Cole was named Chairman two years ago.
The redrawn 1st Congressional District, created by the state General Assembly in the 1992 voter reapportionment under U.S. Voting Rights guidelines, now sprawls over eastern North Carolina from the Virginia border to Wilmington, near the South Caroline line.
The district as a 51 percent black voter majority.
The district in 1992 sent Eva M. Clayton to Congress as a Warren County Democrat. Another minority majority District, the 12th District between Durham and Charlotte, elected Mel Watt, a black Charlotte attorney, to the U.S. House.
Clayton thus became the first woman and the first African-American to go to the U.S. House from North Carolina since 1902.
She won about three months seniority over Watt and other 1992 House freshmen when she also was elected to fill out the unexpired term of the late 1st District Rep. Walter B. Jones, D-Farmville.
Wilkins said he had conferred with Clayton about the leadership vacuum and ``she's concerned, too.''
``The new 1st District creates a lot of political diversity,'' said Wilkins. ``Obviously, a Wilmington resident in some cases might not be a good chairman to somebody in Elizabeth City. But by polling regional groups, we ought to be able to find a chairman who will be acceptable to everyone.''
Because Clayton faces reelection in November - she is opposed by Republican Ted Tyler, of Rich Square - and many other offices held by Democrats are contested, 1st District Democratic politicians want to stabilize the party leadership.
State Sen. Frank W. Ballance Jr., a black legislator from Clayton's home town of Warrenton, is expected by many to end up as party chairman in a compromise among white and black Democrats.
But it is not known whether Ballance will accept the position.
``I don't see how I could handle it with the pressure from my law practice,'' Ballance said last week as the General Assembly struggled to wind up its ``short session.''
For months, legislative needs have kept Ballance in Raleigh, where he is considered one of the state's top African-American leaders.
Ballance won national attention when he quietly managed the first-of-it's-kind campaign that elected Clayton to Congress. He is viewed as a ``someday'' successor to Clayton in the U.S. House.
But Wilkins and others are now considering ways to convince Ballance that he should accept the 1st District Democratic chairmanship.
One carrot they may offer is a strong 1st vice chair who would willingly take some of the load off Ballance in a real sharing of party responsibility.
Frequently mentioned as such a vice chairman is Paine, the relatively young Beaufort County clerk, who did former chairman Hodges' heavy lifting for many years.
Paine has so far said only that he'll have his hands full getting reelected as Beaufort court clerk this fall. by CNB